Big Brother's in their backyard...

...as well as their garbage.

Get used to being told what you can and cannot throw in the trash, Americans.

Canandaigua, New York has mandated recycling. Catch up here.

Now, Alexandria, Virginia - just a stone's throw from the U.S. capital - is about to do those western New Yorkers one better. Read more here.

The City Council added a mandatory $9 charge to its residents' annual waste collection fee.

That cash -- roughly $180,000 collected from 19,000 residents-- will pay for new larger recycling carts equipped with computer microchips, which will allow the city to keep tabs on its bins and track resident participation in the city's recycling program.

"If you know who's participating in the programs, you can focus your education and outreach to those who are not participating," said Stacy Herring, Alexandria's recycling coordinator.

The lone voice of reason on the City Council was Frank Fannon.

Councilman Frank Fannon, the lone City Council member to oppose the new recycling bins, said he was against increased government spending, not recycling.

"I thought this was just another fee that we didn't have to pass on to the residents," he said.

How much is being spent on personnel (recycling director?), fuel, sorting, etc. for this program? Wouldn't it be cheaper to make it voluntary?

I remember recycling glass and newspapers way back in the 60's and 70's. Nobody forced us to do it, we just did. We didn't need to hire recycling "specialists" to tell us how to do it.

People saved and bundled their newspapers. We Boy Scouts would go around town with a pickup and trailer to pick them up. It was then sold to the paper recycler as a little fundraiser for our troop.

Glass was actually fun to recycle. We'd help dad load up the back of the pickup and head for the dump. Our regular garbage got thrown off for the dozers to bury with everyone else's trash. The glass bins were the next stop. Huge dumpsters were labeled with the proper colors and we went to town. Nobody cared if you smashed glass there - as long as the green bottles got broken in the green glass bin, the brown glass in the brown glass bin, and the clear glass in the clear glass bin.

The town then sold the glass to recyclers.

Pretty danged simple, eh?



Why do our representatives have to make everything so danged difficult?

Isn't it sad that we have local, state, and federal representatives that don't listen to us? How is it that they are able to ignore the will of the people? Why are they called representatives when they don't represent us?

Oh yeah, they represent special interests!